


Achilles and The Hydros

by fandomlimb



Category: The Song of Achilles - Madeline Miller
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-07-31
Updated: 2018-12-04
Packaged: 2019-06-19 05:34:20
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 6,226
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15503433
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fandomlimb/pseuds/fandomlimb
Summary: Achilles and Patroclus are living with Chiron on Mt Pelion when Patroclus is bit by a poisonous water snake.





	1. The Riverbank

**Author's Note:**

> This story takes inspiration and diverges from this short scene from Chapter 19:
> 
> “Hydros,” Achilles said. Water-snake. It was dun gray, and its flat head hung brokenly to the side. Its body still trembled a little, dying.
> 
> Weakness sluiced through me. Chiron had made us memorize their homes and colors. Brown-gray, by water. Quick to anger. Deadly bite.
> 
> “I did not even see it,” I managed. He threw the thing aside, to lie blunt-nosed and brown among the weeds. He had broken its neck.
> 
> “You did not have to,” he said. “I saw it.”

**Patroclus**

The midday sun bore down on our bare bodies as we lazed by the riverbank, drifting in and out of wakefulness. I still felt drunk and dizzy, in a daze over what we’d done the night before. And again at dawn. And just now in the water before collapsing in a tangled heap by the river’s edge. I sighed and breathed in the scent of Achilles’ sun-ripened skin. I pressed my toes deep into the silt and felt cool mud ooze between my toes; the squelching sensation felt odd but so strangely satisfying that it made me laugh to myself.

I thought Achilles was dozing, but he turned his face away from the sun and landed the light of his gaze upon me, quirking an eyebrow: “What are you laughing at?”

“Nothing.” My secretive grin belied my words.

“Oh really? _Nothing_ sounds a lot like you giggling.”

“I don’t _giggle_.”

“Is that so?”

“Yes. I… _chuckle_ …or _snicker_ perhaps. We’re sixteen now. Men don’t giggle.”

“Then what do you call this?” In a flash, before I could even register he’d moved, he lunged for the sensitive areas under my knees and arms, where he knew I was the most ticklish. My arms and legs snapped protectively against my body like a clamshell but I was delighted nonetheless by his barrage of tickles, which quickly turned into a frenzy of kisses all over my neck and chest and belly. He teased my nipples between his teeth in quick, cruel heavenly bites. His hands were everywhere at once, arousing me and wrecking me. We tossed and tussled in the sandy bank until he straddled my lap, pinning my hands above my head. My muscles were taught bowstrings, waiting for him to stretch and pull me apart at his whim. I was happily at his mercy, but still put up as much as a fight as I was able against someone like him. I was hard again, even though it had been less than a half hour since he’d taken me in his perfect hands while we bathed in the river together. He was hard, too, and I realized with a thrill that rippled like a fever chill down my body that we would never have to hide this part of ourselves ever again. Not from each other, at least. My naked desire for him was out in the open at last; my body and heart was his for the taking, now and for as long as he’d have me.

“Not fair,” I panted between fits of what certainly were not _giggles_ as he relentlessly bombarded me with tickles and nips of his teeth. “You wrestle like a god. How am I supposed to compete with you?”

“Don’t compete then. Let me win.”

“Never.” I lunged up and blew a sloppy raspberry on his belly. It caught him off guard and gave me just enough time to reverse our positions so that I was now pinning him to the ground, straddling his waist. I rolled my hips in such a way that drew groans of pleasure from both of us.

I knew Achilles wasn’t ticklish and would always best me in sheer strength but I had my own ways of disarming him.

“Please,” he moaned as I pressed our chests together and licked the inner coils of his ear. He bucked up against me and we both gasped. Goosebumps erupted over his chest, arms and neck; I skimmed my lips over his, humming, my feather-soft touch a mere whisper of the joy I wanted to shout in thanks to the gods of Mount Olympus that this perfect heavenly creation was mine to hold and touch and kiss at last.

“Please what?” I whispered.

“Please…”

“What do you want?”

“Kiss me.”

“I am kissing you.”

“Kiss me here.” He stretched his neck to the side like a cat to indicate where he wanted my lips on him because his hands were still pinned down by mine. Though we both knew it was because he was letting me best him.

“Here?” I suckled the tender spot where his earlobe met his neck.

“Yes.”

“Or here?” I moved my lips down his neck and licked the long straight path of his collarbone. His skin tasted salty and grassy and sweet, too. We’d been eating leftover figs from his birthday, so maybe that was where the lingering taste in my mouth came from. But I swore the sweetness came from his skin alone.

“Yes, that too.”

“Where else?”

He lifted his head off the ground and drew his gaze down to the spot where our hips met. Where I was writhing against him, sliding our cocks against each other as slowly and with as much control as I could muster. I easily gleaned the meaning of his downward glance.

Keeping his hands pinned, I scooted my hips back along his thighs and kissed a meandering path down his belly. When I reached his belly button, I had the strange urge to lick it and kiss it and burrow my nose deep in it. I did and he nudged his hips up.

“That’s not where I meant.”

“I know where you meant. I’m just taking the scenic route.”

His peel of laughter warmed me all over. I finally released his hands when I got to the fat, pink head of his cock. I was too embarrassed to tell him that I thought his cock was beautiful. But it was. The head especially reminded me of something pure and perfect, like a dewdrop dangling off the stem of a leaf. I licked his pre-cum and sighed, keeping my ludicrous overtures to his manhood to my private thoughts. His hands moved to the top of my head; he tucked a strand of hair behind my ear for me. Despite his strength, his hands were light, not pressuring but reassuring. I took the head in my mouth and swirled my tongue around and into his slit, looking up to meet his eyes; his groan was all the answer I needed to know I was on the right path. I stretched my lips wide, careful to cover my teeth, and slid up and down his length as far as I could before I felt a sting in my eyes and a clenching in the back of my throat. I drew off and licked the crescent between my thumb and forefinger, then used my spit-slick hand to grip the base of his cock while my mouth nearly devoured the rest of his curved length in a matching rhythm. With the light pressure of his hands upon my head, I felt powerful and under his command all at once. I set a rapid pace up and down, sucking in my cheeks, using the flat of my tongue to lick the underside of his cock until I felt his thighs and hips clench and his hands grip my hair tighter. I knew he was close and I wanted to taste his seed so badly I was relentless in my quest for his total pleasure. When he finally came in a hot spurt down my throat I felt like I was the half-god, not him.

He sighed and pulled me up to kiss me hard and deep.

“Thank you,” he said.

“For what?”

“For making me feel immortal.”

We kissed, him taking the lead, sliding his tongue over mine in a hot, insistent pressure that soon had me gasping for air.

“I want to watch you while you come undone,” he said, gripping my length and stroking it fast in his sure, strong hands. “Keep your eyes open?”

I did as he asked and when I came I grasped his shoulders so hard they were sure to leave red claw marks where my fingernails dug deep into his skin. But I never tore my eyes away from his, even as the world around seemed to still and become unnaturally silent and cold. It must have only lasted a mere second or two, but in the moment of my release the ecstasy I felt was laced with another feeling I couldn’t name. But I felt sure for a second that we were being watched.

Impossible.

Thetis couldn’t see us here. She’d told him. She couldn’t have lied, could she?

My heart clamored and I pulled him close, drawing in long breaths that I hoped would calm the horse hooves pounding through my veins.

“Are you alright? Wore you out, did I?” he teased, seeming unaware of anything that had set off my panic.

“Yes.” I said and allowed myself to be held and rocked in his tight embrace. I was being childish, paranoid. My old fears about Achilles’ mother’s hatred of me were just rearing up at the most inopportune time.

“Ready to head back? Chiron will think we're skipping off our lessons today.” He kissed the top of my head and got up to gather our tunics and basket of food.

It was while his back his turned that I saw a pair of yellow slit eyes break the surface of the river and peer straight into mine. The look the water snake leveled at me was knowing, almost human. _How strange_ , I thought, before it leapt from the water in one fierce, undulating motion and sunk its fangs into my leg.


	2. Bargains

**Achilles**

My back was turned. If I’d only seen the hydros rise out of the water, I could have stopped it. I knew a split-second too late that something was terribly wrong. The air cooled, too quiet and too still. I sensed Patroclus’s sudden fear and turned around as the snake sunk its fangs deep into his calf, puncturing his skin down to the bone.

_No!_

Patroclus made a strangled gasping noise. A noise he should never ever make. I lept forward and grabbed the vile creature. Killed it with two twists of my wrists, like wringing out a wet towel, and flung it aside.

“Are you alright?”

“Not sure. Hurts.” He spoke through gritted teeth. Clutched his leg and shuddered. The wound was deeper than I would have liked, not mere puncture marks. Two gory gashes. A circle around the incisions was swelling up alarmingly fast, turning bulbous and purple. Panic seized me but I steadied my breath and found the sharp focus I needed to help him however was necessary.

_Keep him alive._

Chiron had taught us how to suck venom out of a snake bite and so I knelt down and brought my lips to his hot, exposed flesh. Took a long drag and spit it all out before his blood hit my throat. His blood was too salty. It tasted like the sea. But we were far from the ocean. I looked closer at the snake. It was nothing like the creatures Chiron had described to us as being native to his mountain. Jet black, almost oily looking. Its dead eyes were rimmed with gold, like my mother’s.

Fear prickled at the back of my neck.

“We need to get you to Chiron. Now.” I grabbed my tunic and tied it around Patroclus’s leg, stanching the bleeding. I lifted him up as gently as I could then bolted like my own life depended on it back to Chiron’s cave.

 

* * *

 

**Thetis**

We all make bargains to save the ones we love.

My bargain was to accept what that mortal swine Peleus had done to me in exchange for one thing: for Zeus to bless my son with hero’s glory. To grant him the immortality that was stolen from him when they conspired against me and Zeus helped Peleus force his seed inside me.

It’s what my son deserved. What _I_ deserved.

I said _accept_. Not forgive. I’ll never forgive Peleus for what he took from me. So many nights I’ve dreamt of strangling him. Of holding his face down in the sand and choking him in seawater. Of leaving him there to bloat, left as a floating warning to anyone who tries to overpower me ever again.

But Achilles would never forgive me. Like a soppy fool, he loves his father. Like a fool, he loves the cow-eyed boy, too.

So I did what I had to do to insure my son’s survival. For his name to be written in the stars with the immortals, where it belongs.

It was simple really. Once I realized Chiron’s mountain somehow blocked my third sight, I cut off my pinky toe and transformed it into a water snake. I wove my blood and hate and tears into the shifting spell to ensure that my snake’s fangs were tipped in salt-iron poison. I trained my beautiful onyx familiar to strike hard, fast and deep, always aiming for a lethal kill. And I eventually set it loose in Mt Pelion’s rivers. I needed eyes where my own were blind. I needed fangs and poison and I needed that mortal boy’s blood to spill before my son fell even further in his childish infatuation. All I needed was patience and the right moment for my beautiful serpent to strike. After all, a goddess is only as good as her spies.

 

* * *

 

**Patroclus**

I clung tightly to Achilles’s shoulders as he raced with impossible speed back to Chiron’s cave. I felt so odd. Floating, unmoored, dizzy, racked with convulsions and nausea. I licked my lips and tasted salt. I tried to speak but my throat was clogged with seaweed. My eyes saw two worlds simultaneously: the familiar grass and trees of Mt Pelion and a second world, inky blue and murky, as if I was either underwater or at the gates of Hades. I was sure I was hallucinating and the snake’s poison was seeping into my brain. I clamped my eyes shut and breathed into Achilles’s neck, breathed in his skin like it was the only thing tethering me to my life force, my sanity. I should have been embarrassed how easily he carried me, like I was a child in his arms. But I wasn’t. He made me feel safe, and if I was going to die I’d rather it be in his arms than anywhere else.

 

* * *

 

**Achilles**

The whole time I ran I prayed to the Gods to keep him alive.

_Please Apollo, grant my legs the speed to get him to Chiron safely. I'll offer anything. Any bargain. Just get me there fast enough to save him._

He must have heard me, because I felt a gust of wind lick at my heels and what should have been an hour's walk back to Chiron's cave passed in a blur of mere minutes. 

I didn't know then the true nature of the bargain I'd made with Apollo. If I'd known, I never would have asked him for help.

 

 

 

 


	3. Tending

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> "theriac" definition — an ointment or other medicinal compound used as an antidote to snake venom or other poison

**Achilles**

Thank the Gods, Chiron was home when I arrived carrying Patroclus.

"Help!" I cried. "Chiron! A snake. A snake bit him. He’s badly hurt. I did what I could.”

"Bring him inside, lay him down on the pallet by the fire. Quickly!"

I tried to set Patroclus down but he clung stubbornly to me, digging his fingernails into my shoulders, his eyes screwed shut. "S-s-s-stay. D-d-d-d-don’t go,” he stuttered in a harsh strangled voice, gagging horribly on each strained word. His skin was feverish and covered in gooseflesh. Sweat plastered his dark curls to his forehead and I could feel his neck’s throbbing pulse point as he pressed his face to my chest.

“ _Shh_ , I’m not going anywhere, I promise. Chiron will take care of you. _Shhh_.”

I managed to lay him down on the mat, though our hands never unclasped as Chiron knelt down on his four legs on the floor beside us and unwrapped the tunic I’d tied around Patroclus’s leg to stanch the bleeding. My stomach turned at the gory sight beneath it.

“Help him! Now!” I growled, barely recognizing my own voice. 

“Achilles, I need you to breathe evenly and keep calm. Describe the snake to me,” Chiron commanded in his maddeningly composed voice. “Was it an asp viper? A cat snake?”

“No. Came out of the river. Big, all black,” I said.

“Black? You’re sure? It wasn’t brown or gray and just looked darker from the water?”

“I’m sure. It was pitch black.”

“And did it have a ridge down its center?" 

“Not that I saw.”

“Its pupils. Were they round or slit?”

“Gold eyes. Black slit pupil.”

“Is there anything else you can tell me? Any other identifying marks?”

“No. Except…something wasn’t right, Chrion. The snake was _wrong_ …I felt something in the air. It felt still and cold right before it bit him. I’ve never seen a snake like that before.”

Patroclus nodded his head vigorously and tried to speak, but was consumed with a fit of choking coughs, tears streaming down his beautiful face. It was almost too much to bear. I needed to do something, I needed to help him or else I was going to go mad from the sight of his wordless anguish. My heart cleaved in two with each gag and gasp as he struggled to speak.

“Chiron, what’s wrong? Why can’t he talk?”

“Don’t try to speak,” Chiron instructed Patroclus. “Poison may be constricting your throat and airways. You must try to relax. Stay calm. Breathe through your nose. We’re going to help you.” 

Chiron immediately went to work and instructed me how best to assist him. He lit incense and recited an incantation to Asclepius to begin, then gathered several jars of healing ointments and applied a thick emerald green theriac over Patroclus’s heart and throat while I cleaned the leg wounds. Then he applied cupping glasses to the punctures and scarified the surrounding skin to leech out any poison still lingering in Patroclus’s blood. Then he applied a paste over the wound to bring down the swelling and aid in clotting the blood and sealing the skin. He then mixed his strongest wine with a theriac made of ground-up gentian, balsam seed, rue, myrrh, poppy, anis and viper flesh and forced Patroclus to drink it all down. Even though each swallow left him sputtering, nearly choking, Chiron insisted that the drink would help ease the pain and keep him calm and sedate. Soon after, Patroclus fell asleep. 

“What next? How will you know if the theriacs are working?”

“I will tend to him and assess the wounds again when he wakes in a few hour’s time. I’m hoping the swelling in his throat will go down and he’ll be able to speak.”

“What if it doesn’t? And what about his leg?”

“If we were able to keep the poison from spreading I think there’s a chance he’ll be alright. But I won’t know until I assess it again. If the blood blisters and purple discoloration continue to expand up his leg I’m afraid I might not be able to save it.”

“What do you mean save it?”

“I mean I may need to perform surgery and remove the leg if that means keeping him alive. I don’t want to, but it’s a last resort.”

My stomach heaved up into my throat. Remove Patroclus’s leg? My whole being cried out no, that there had to be another way to save him.

“Is there no antidote to the poison?”

“I’d need you to go back and retrieve the snake so I can examine it and see if I know of any existing antidotes to that particular snake’s poison. I know of some cases of people who have built up resistance over time ingesting non-lethal doses of poison. Their blood or saliva could potentially be used to create an antivenin. But from what you described, this snake is not like any I’ve encountered before.”

“I’ll go back and get it. I hate to leave him here like this, though.”

“I’ll watch over him. Be swift. And don’t touch the snake with your bare bands. Use a cloth to wrap it in.”

“I won’t be long. I should have thought to grab it before. I’ll run as fast as I can.”

I set off in a mad dash back to the riverbank, pleading to the Gods once more for my swiftness and for Chiron’s cures to take immediate effect. When I arrived to our picnic spot by the river, I stopped in my tracks. Unease prickled over me. Seated before me, petting the dead creature with her back turned to me, was my mother.


	4. Ouroboros

**Achilles**

“What are you doing here?” I demanded to my mother’s back. “I thought you'd already headed back to the palace yesterday.”

She didn’t turn around to face me but answered coolly, “You should know why I’m here, my son. Or are you becoming as simple as that boy you insist on keeping as your trusty lapdog?”

My mother had not even bothered to look me in the eyes as she blithely insulted Patroclus. This made my already quickening blood churn in anger. I stepped toward her and she raised a hand to halt me. She twisted her neck and leveled me with a molten stare, her amber eyes glowing blinding-bright as they did only when she was irritated or distressed. They flashed once and then she turned back around to face the river. “Before you fly into a predictable rage, Achilles, let me be clear. I am here simply because I heard your frantic pleas to the Gods to save that mortal’s life. You were beyond foolish to make your thoughts so transparent, especially when imploring the Gods for a favor. I taught you better than that. I doubt there’s an immortal in the skies above or seas below that didn’t hear your desperate cry for help. And now they’ll all know your weakness and use it against you. Stupidly done, Achilles. Very stupidly done.”

My blood boiled in protest. “If you knew me at all, you would know that I would do anything to help Patroclus when he needs me. And I hope that the Gods did hear me if that means I have a chance of saving his life! Which I fully intend to do. Now give me that snake. I need to bring it back to Chiron immediately.”

She tightened her fingers around the lifeless creature. “Why ever so?”

“He needs to examine it and see if he can make an antivenin for the snake bite before it’s too late.”

I made a move to grab the snake from the ground next to her but she clutched it in an unrelenting viselike grip. I was surprised by her strength, though I probably shouldn’t have been. We struggled for a moment, neither of us willing to give up our claim to the serpent’s corpse. 

“Mother, I told you to give me the snake. Chiron needs it.”

“I’m afraid I can’t let you have it.” She kept her voice light but I saw the simmering gold heat behind her eyes. Her eyes flashed again and my hand burned icy-hot like I'd plunged my arm into a frozen river. Shocked, I released my hold on the snake and shook out my stinging hand. I didn't understand what was happening. Why was she acting this way?

“Why are you doing this? The antivenin could be the only way to save his life!”

“If he dies, it will be because nature intended it so. Mortals die all the time. Their bodies are frail and weak. Your lapdog is no different. And besides, Necromancy—even on a common hydros such as this—can be dangerous. I don't want you involved with such dark magics.”

"The antivenin is medicine, not magic."

"Either way, I came here because I saw you were distressed. And now that I understand fully the reason why, I cannot with good conscious let you take this snake back to Chiron."

“Mother, release the snake to me right now. I don’t want to hurt you but I will if you don’t let it go and give it to me.”

“No.”

The temperature of the air plummeted, despite the late afternoon sun beaming down over our heads. The sounds around me dampened like I’d suddenly submerged my head underwater. I heard no rush of the river nor the rustle of the tall grasses in the wind nor the screech of birds overhead. I only heard the sound of my own echoing heartbeats mingled with my mother’s sharp rasps of breath. The same prickling uneasiness I’d felt right before the hyrdos attacked Patroclus washed over me like a wave of nausea. I shivered and backed away from my mother. A few paces back from her, the air’s temperature warmed again just as quickly as it had cooled. My hearing righted itself. But the sick feeling in the pit of my stomach remained. Magic. I knew the feeling of my mother's magic. Of course I did. It was like cold needles all over your skin and the surge of the ocean's dark unforgiving wrath. What was going on? Why was she here? Why was she acting like this? I wanted to tear my hair out in frustration. How did she know to find me here?

A terrible understanding dawned on me. She shouldn't have known. 

“I thought you said you couldn’t see me here?”

“What do you mean?”

“Before. Yesterday." Was it truly only yesterday that I'd told Patroclus we were safe from her intruding gaze? If only I could go back in time, I'd never have taken him to this cursed riverbank. "Yesterday you said your sight was blocked when Patroclus and I are on Chiron’s mountain. How come you could see me plea to the Gods? We’re still on Chiron’s mountain are we not? We're under his protection, are we not?”

If she was at all rattled by my accusation she didn't show it. “I meant I could _hear_ you. You dared to call upon the Gods to aid you. I'm sure every immortal for miles around heard you."

“Chiron didn’t hear me and he's immortal. He was surprised when I showed up carrying Patroclus.”

“Well what do you expect of a half-breed? He was probably too busy grazing or chomping oats to hear you.”

“How dare you insult him! Chiron is wiser and kinder than any man or immortal I’ve ever met.”

“He may be immortal, but he’s still an animal. Or have you failed to notice his flank and tail and hooves while he’s teaching you to gather berries and chop firewood like a common palace servant?”

I knew she was trying to goad me with her hateful words. To distract me and set me off course from helping Patroclus. But I wouldn’t let her insults to Chiron divert me from the truth that was flittering around me like a mosquito buzzing in my ear.

“Why would you lie to me? If you could see us this whole time then why lie about it? I don’t even care that you saw us last night. I’d do it again, with or without your consent.”

She stilled. The air around her did too. “Do what exactly?”

“Patroclus and I are together now. We’re bonded. Body and soul. But you knew that already, didn’t you? If I’d known you could see us, I never would have…”

“Never would have what?”

“Last night, Patroclus and I, we…”

“Ah yes, you fucked?”

I flinched.

“Yes, of course you fucked him. That you would stoop to spill your seed inside that mortal imbecile is beyond reprehensible. I’m disgusted that you let it go this far with him. Not only he is your lapdog but now he’s your whore, too.”

“Don’t.”

My vision swam with red spots. I took deep ragged breaths, willing myself not to take the bait she was dangling in front of me. I knew what she was doing but that didn’t make the sting of her hateful words hurt any less. I still felt like she’d shot an arrow through my chest. I shut my eyes and forced myself to breathe. The red haze in front of my eyes lifted. And I realized she’d been bluffing. Patroclus and I had done a lot in the cave last night, but we hadn’t done everything. We hadn’t done what she’d accused us of. But why was she lying?

“I love Patroclus and he loves me. I know that is a difficult for you to understand, but it is the most true thing I know.”

“Don’t speak to me of love.”

“Why? Maybe there was a time long ago when you had a heart, when you had an ounce of tenderness and compassion, but now it’s just a dry shriveled husk.”

“Love between an immortal and a human is impossible.”

“Just because my father did what he did to you doesn’t mean…”

“Don’t speak of him! I forbid it!” An icy shock of air radiated out from her, hitting me hard like a frigid slap in the face. My eyes watered from the brute force of it. We both stood in shocked silence for a moment. I’d never seen her lose control of her magic like that. She’d never hit me before, either. If that’s what she’d done. I touched my cheek. It burned.

She reached out as if to touch my face and I flinched away.

“I’m sorry, my son. I shouldn’t have lost my temper. Please know that whatever I say and do is to protect you. You know I love you, don’t you?”

There was a lot I didn’t understand about my mother’s powers; about the depth of her anger and her despair. About why her love for me and her hatred of my father had warped twisted and itself into an Ouroboros, forever eating away at itself but never satisfied, always hungry. But now was not the time to argue with her. I’d had enough. I didn’t have time for this, not when Patroclus’ life lay hanging in the balance. I’d wasted too much time already.

“Give me the snake. Now. Please, mother. This is the last time I’m going ask politely.”

“So you can run back to your dying whore? His soul has probably already reached the gates of Hades.”

“Patroclus is mine and I’m his. And there’s absolutely nothing you can do about it.”

“That’s where you’re wrong, my son. What’s done has already been done.”

“What do you mean?”

“I took the matter in hand.”

She stroked the black snake and looked straight at me with her treacherous yellow eyes.

I knew then. I didn’t want it to be true, but I knew it had to be so. She’d tried to kill Patroclus. I didn’t know how she’d done it. Didn’t know if she’d possessed the snake or used other dark magic to make it to do her bidding. But I didn’t wait for her to try to explain or evade any further. Faster than she could register my movements, I grabbed the snake from her and ran with all the strength and speed I possessed back to Chiron. Hoping against all I hope that I wasn’t too late, that somehow the magic imbued in the dead snake would also hold the key to Patroclus’s life.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ugh sorry for the super long delay between updates!!! I have the rest of the story outlined, just need to find the time to sit down and finish it! Thanks for reading!!!


	5. The River Lethe

**Patroclus**

I opened my eyes to thick curtains of fog all around me. Where I was I could not say. There was nothing to see but gray. No sounds save my own breathing. Tiny beads of moisture prickled my eyes and my exposed skin. I was naked. I found that odd, but not terribly alarming. I made no move to cover myself, for I wasn’t ashamed. I was curious about how I’d found myself in this strange mist, but I wasn’t panicked. In fact I felt…almost nothing. I felt the way one does as you’re about to fall into a deep slumber: heavy-lidded and heavy-limbed while the thinking mind floats peacefully adrift. Was I dreaming? Hallucinating? Dead? It didn’t matter really, except that I had the nagging feeling I had forgotten to do something important. That there was somewhere else I was supposed to be. The trouble was, I couldn’t remember where I’d been before I woke up here and saw no reason to leave. The nagging thought remained elusive. 

The air was stifling, warm and close, like in a steam bath after water is poured over heated rocks. I stood calf-deep in a pool of tepid water, though I couldn’t see far enough in front of me to know whether I was wading in a puddle, a river, or a lake. I made no move to leave the water. I don’t know how long I stood there, but I eventually began to sweat from the suffocating heat. I was terribly thirsty. My desert throat throbbed, aching for relief. I wanted nothing more than to reach down and gulp buckets of the water, to quench the fire in my throat. But I didn’t. Even in my torpid state, I knew better than to drink from unknown waters in an unknown place.

Every so often a breeze would blow and with it came the overpowering smell of sulfur. The stench was so pungent I nearly gagged before I switched to breathing through my mouth only and my body adjusted to the chthonian odor.

After what could have been minutes or hours or days, I heard something. Bells. Far off in the distance.

I yelled “Hello!” and was met with no reply except a thousand tinny echoes of my own voice intertwined with the clanging of the bells. They rang twelve times. I shut my eyes and let the sound wash over me. There was a pause and then they rang for another twelve.

After the final bell, I held my breath, hoping for something.

And I remembered: _Achilles_. The memory of him was a thunderstoke reverberating inside my chest, jolting me to full alertness. I felt the ghost of his lips on mine, felt my hands weave through his golden hair, saw his shining green eyes, his golden skin, heard his sonorous voice whispering my name.

_Patroclus, hold on. Please. I'm coming for you. Don't leave me. Not yet._

Why wasn’t he here with me, by my side? Where was Chiron? How did I get here? How could I get back to Chiron’s cave? Why had I wasted so much time standing here like a drugged fool? I remembered a snake bite, pain and blood, a terrible feeling like I’d been thrown into the ocean. I needed to make sure Achilles was safe, that he hadn’t been bit, too. Where was he? How would we ever find each other in this dense, unrelenting fog?

I tried to take a step forward but the silt under my feet suctioned me to the earth, pulling me further down into the mud. I was stuck. For the first time since I’d arrived here, I was frightened. I needed to be gone of this foul place. I tried to move again, but the more I struggled and tried to lift one leg, the more the mud rooted the other leg down into the pit. If I was indeed stuck here forever and if Achilles didn’t know where I was he’d be worried sick about me. I didn’t want him to worry. But I didn’t want him to try and find me and get stuck here, too. He belonged in the sunshine, not in the cloying murk of wherever I was. The last thing I wanted was for him to get engulfed in a bed of quicksand, lost to the world’s light forever.

I took long, measured breaths, trying to ease down the panic building inside me, trying to think of how I could get myself out of this. The smell of rotten eggs was unbearable at times. But I needed to keep breathing or else I’d panic and struggle and get pulled down even further. I decided the only thing I could do was to sit down and try to lay back and swim my way out of here. I moved as slowly as I could despite the wild horse-hooves stampeding in my heart. When I was fully horizontal, the pressure in my feet began to lift. I made a silent prayer of thanks to the Gods as my legs unglued themselves from the mud little by little. Finally I was free enough to roll to my side and swim free of the quicksand’s grip.

I swam and swam until my burning muscles could take it no longer. I was still achingly hot and thirsty but I spit out any water that accidentally crossed my lips. The water was much deeper now. I wouldn’t have been able to touch bottom unless I dove far far down. I lay on my back and shuddered in profound relief that I’d made it out of the mud alive. All the panic I’d held back sluiced out of me as animal cries escaped from my lips, my whole chest wracked with sobs. I’d nearly died. But I was still alive. Wherever I was, I wasn’t dead yet. I couldn’t be dead. I hadn’t said good-bye to Achilles. I refused to die until I’d seen him again and made sure he was safe. I pleaded to the mist, “Take me back to him. Please help me find him.”

I shut my eyes and began to drift downstream.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> From wikipedia: The Lethe was one of the five rivers of the underworld of Hades. Also known as the Ameles potamos (river of unmindfulness), the Lethe flowed around the cave of Hypnos and through the Underworld, where all those who drank from it experienced complete forgetfulness. Lethe was also the name of the Greek spirit of forgetfulness and oblivion, with whom the river was often identified.


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